


i think if i gave you my heart,

by papencuts



Series: cherry wine [1]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, I am not a doctor, I did no research, Neurology & Neuroscience, aaron loses a patient he was attached to, and they work through it, graphic nightmares, i will go down with aaron/katelyn if it kills me, it's just a Bad Day, katelyn helps him through it, neurologist aaron, please do not attack me, soft with angst, the medicine in this is FICTIONAL
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-09
Updated: 2020-01-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:15:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22183930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/papencuts/pseuds/papencuts
Summary: When Aaron stopped talking, Katelyn let him simply hold her; letting him fester and marinate in his feelings. He curled up into her, connecting them. Vaguely, something rose to the surface of his mind.Whatever souls are made of, hers and mine are the same.He let out a soft breath and pressed a soft kiss to her neck, conveying something too abstract and complex for him to process in that moment. His entire body was made of grief, in that moment, and Katelyn held it all under pressure until it became love.
Relationships: Katelyn/Aaron Minyard
Series: cherry wine [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1596874
Comments: 6
Kudos: 33





	i think if i gave you my heart,

**Author's Note:**

> i put too much of myself into this. please excuse any OOC nonsense, i did my best.

Aaron’s fingers trembled as he swiped his key card through the scanner, eyes glazed and face unresponsive when Norelle, the friendliest nurse in the whole hospital, called a farewell to him. 

Tiredness weighed his bones, slouching his posture and making his medbag feel nothing short of a ton. He sat in his car with no memory of getting there. 

He drifted. Other places, other times. He wandered through memories of things he did or should have done. Who he knew and who he knows, including himself. 

His thoughts swept him up until he was watching a loop of  _ get out, Andrew, needle, relief, Andrew, get out, needle, needle, Drake, needle, Katelyn- _

Katelyn. 

Caller ID: Katelyn. 

The crackle of the phone. 

“Aaron? Babe, are you alright? You’ve been sitting in the hospital car park for two hours.” 

Slowly, his hand raised to press the bridge of his nose, too hard at first, he might bruise. But he felt it, and that was good. 

“Aaron, talk to me.” 

“I’m here,” he responded, voice gravelly and rusted, compared to her honeyed voice, sweet and sticking to the insides of his brain. “Just lost track of time.” 

Katelyn said something, but Aaron lost it in the trial that was trying to remember how to drive. How to move. How to speak. How to breathe. 

“Babe? Do you need me to call someone at the hospital for you?” 

“No,” he interjected so quickly it came out a little garbled. No, he was okay. No, he’d get a wriggle on. Yes, dear. Yes. Okay. Goodbye. 

I love you. 

Deliberately, he placed his phone aside. 

Deliberately, he started his car and drove home. 

Deliberately, he kept 10 under the limit the whole way. 

  
  


She was so, so warm. That was something Aaron always was reminded of when he hugged Katelyn for the first time after a shift. The hospital was always cold. Most days, it was comforting. That day, it reminded Aaron of death. 

He didn’t let go of her for a long time. Not as long as he sat in the carpark, but still a long time. 

“It’s alright, baby,” she whispered in his ear and when she kissed his temple she took a single tear from him with her on her lips. 

“She was so young, Katie. She had so much… life,” he croaked, nestling his wet face into her neck. They were sitting, reclined so far they were practically lying down. She had a hand in his hair, cupping his neck and bracing his shoulders, another under his loose t shirt. 

Katelyn was strong on her rules, and Aaron had always been grateful. 

Work clothes came off at the door. 

Post-work showers are mandatory. 

The hall stays on whenever the windows aren’t bright enough. 

It had been the same today, but Katelyn had climbed in with him, washing the clinical smell off him. 

He wondered if she could smell it on him. The dead.

His colleagues in the neurology faculty could. Aaron could. Fingers that would never touch again, voices that would never be heard. Eyes that would never see, hearts that would never beat. They all saw it until they smelt it and by god, did Aaron  _ reek _ . The operating theatre was soaked in the stench of death, seeping out of every crevice, leaking out from Aaron’s pores like tar, weighing him down and rendering him untouchable. 

Fingers brushed over his neck, over the pulse points and the veins. Aaron recited the names of them in his head, naming each quadrant, each muscle, each section of tissue as wet hands roamed wet skin, bringing Aaron back to her with every freckle she kissed, every birthmark her fingertips brushed. Blonde head resting against cool ties, eyes closed, lashes wet. Touch was a novel sensation. 

Aaron could faintly feel the warm flesh of Katelyn’s hips under his hands- when that happened, he couldn’t say- but she always said she thought they were too wide. Aaron disagreed, he thought idly, eyes opening briefly to watch droplets roll off the moles that sat just above where torso met thigh. He liked them, liked all of her. Liked the parts of her she hated, especially. They needed extra love, when she’d let him. And she would, usually. He’d say, ‘ _ I spent too long not looking at you. Now that I am, I want to see all of you. _ ’ when she was underneath him, hair splayed out in every which way, cheeks flushed and chin tilted back in a way she’d later say was unflattering, but he disagreed with a passion. 

“Babe?” she whispered, staring at him, both hands holding his neck. Her eyes were so blue, Aaron noted absently. Her hands were warm from their tendency to never idle. He lifted himself from his slouch against the tiles, hands wrapping around her waist, and gently pushing her into the place where he’d been. She went easily, still trying to psychoanalyse him with her eyes. 

“Love you,” he mumbled, kissing the very corner of her jaw, speaking into the spot, “love you.” He didn’t need to say it twice, rarely said it at all, really, but it felt it necessary then. 

Her throat worked under his lips, releasing a breathy, “Love you too, sweetheart.” 

Post-work showers were mandatory, and today it was taken with company. 

Katelyn had them lay down, at close to one in the morning, tucking him in like she would a baby. Aaron, who was rapidly fluctuating between something akin to manic-normalcy and a catatonic state of grief, was too overcome with the latter to mention it. 

“I’m not going to… but this is how I’d feel before…” he whispered, Katelyn stilling for a moment to listen without pinning him down with her attention. 

She wrapped a hand around the inside of his elbow and scratched over the track marks lightly, making Aaron shudder involuntarily. “I know, Aaron,” she whispered, dropping a kiss to his bicep. “You’re vulnerable. You need someone to take care of you. You deserve to be taken care of, sweetpea.” 

Aaron pushed himself up onto one arm and wrapped the other around Katelyn’s middle, pulling her down to lie next to him. “Thanks, Dr. Minyard,” he whispered, humour seeping into his voice without spreading to his face. 

“You’re welcome, Dr. Minyard,” she said softly, kissing his nose softly in response. “Do you ever think it’s funny that you ended up in neurosurgery and I ended up in psychiatry?” she asked, lips soft and pink and very kissable. Aaron was helpless to do anything except kiss her softly. 

“We’re similar and entirely unique. Checks out, I guess,” he replied gently, playing with a strand of her hair, brushing it from her collarbone and kissing the skin it revealed. 

Katelyn stared at him again, dropping back into pensive-looking before starting to chew her lip. Aaron knew the signs and shot her a flat look. 

“Just ask.” 

She sighed. “I feel like you should talk through what happened. It’s great you’re feeling better, but…” 

Aaron felt the sinking feeling resettle in his chest, and resisted the urge to hide his face in Katelyn’s chest and instead just tried to smother himself with his pillow. Neatly trimmed nails scratched over the back of his neck and the baby hairs there. 

“Aaron.” 

“God, I can’t believe I married a fucking shrink. You were a nurse when we met,” he groaned, shooting Katelyn a disgruntled look. She huffed in amusement veiled in frustration. 

He stared at a spot on her cheek, not meeting her determined but gentle gaze. 

“It was my own lack of skill that stopped her from surviving. She could have survived and she didn’t, and I am partially, if not fully, responsible for that,” Aaron said, voice coming out victoriously even him despite feeling like tar was lining his throat. 

“Aaron-” 

“I just can’t stop thinking about how she was going to be this epic, grand rockstar that would scream onstage and throw guitars around. I mean, she was going to get rid of this stupid tumour and then be this tortured artist with a cool backstory. She was going to-,” he cleared his throat and blinked his red-rimmed eyes, “she was going to get married, but date whoever she wanted first. She didn’t care, men, women, she just wanted to love and be loved. God, she had the biggest heart, she just… she had so much love to give. And now no one is going to ever know the full extent of her love. Because her moron doctor that didn’t know that the swelling would decrease slightly from the combination of the anaesthesia and her age, along with the acidity of her brain fluid. I didn’t know that and so when I was cutting into the tumour, I severed a hidden…” he choked up then, feeling the tears drop over the edges of his cheeks. 

“Aaron, is not the job of the anaesthetist to warn you of any effects like that?” she asked gently, brushing away the tears with a tissue, intimate and clinical at the same time. 

“It is, and I recognise that I cannot possibly know everything all the time and that’s why I ask every anaesthetist before every surgery if there’s anything I should know, even if they assume I know it. And she should have told me that it’d thin out her blood and the swelling would decrease, but she said there wasn’t anything to note. I should have thought, if she didn’t know about the thinning of the blood, what else doesn’t she know? But I didn’t, I was too focused on get the incision measurements right and making sure the clamps were tight and I had the right equipment. I was too focused on trying to make sure she got out of that OR alive that she fucking died on the table. She… She died on the table. 21:54, 21st of October. Emery Josephine Bingham died, age 18.” 

Katelyn listened and listened, intaking every detail. Despite marrying the nemesis of his adolescence, Katelyn being trained in how to listen to people’s problems did make her an effective ear, especially when she knew most of the medical information. 

When Aaron stopped talking, Katelyn let him simply hold her; letting him fester and marinate in his feelings. He curled up into her, connecting them. Vaguely, something rose to the surface of his mind. 

_ Whatever souls are made of, hers and mine are the same.  _

He let out a soft breath and pressed a soft kiss to her neck, conveying something too abstract and complex for him to process in that moment. His entire body was made of grief, in that moment, and Katelyn held it all under pressure until it became love. 

Slowly, he melted into her, and into a light sleep. 

She held him like no other had ever dared, and five years ago it would have suffocated Aaron. Now, he let himself drown in her touch. 

The next morning wasn’t easier, but it was less intense. She brushed soft blonde hairs away from where they’d been caught under thick eyelashes. She kissed a pillow-case creased cheek and rubbed thin hairs of an eyebrow back into place. She brushed her thumb over his lower lip, dragging it down and kissing the space it revealed. 

  
For all of Aaron’s hardness, he was helpless to do anything but gently kiss her mouth, wrapping a hand around the back of her neck and blend their bodies into one entity. 

He felt her shudder, shake, bend and remake herself underneath, a show of raw vulnerability from them both, rain pattering over the juliet windows that she loved so much. She was all smooth skin, tiny moles and dangerous curves. Aaron held her hips and her waist and her heart in his hands, and in turn he gave her his body and mind, foreheads touching and lips brushing. 

She left, some time after, to shower. Aaron stared after her and then at the wall once she’d gone. She often liked to be left alone in these times, collect her bearings and put herself back together after she’d allowed Aaron to thoroughly take her apart. 

He fell asleep again, but didn’t miss the dip in the mattress and the feel of satin against his skin as Katelyn settled on his chest once again. 

He dreamed of thick, black fluid streaming from his eyes all over her body, covering her brain and suffocating her, so she couldn’t breathe. He saw her grasp her throat as tar filled her throat, Aaron able to do anything but drown her. He watched her die, watched the anaesthetist throw her head back and tar bubble up from her throat, soaking her entire body. The floor caved from the weight of it all, leaving him to scream as he plummeted into darkness, sinking into the void.

He woke up gasping, hitting his chest and coughing. Katelyn sleepily rubbed her hand over his thigh as he rubbed his eyes raw and stood up. Shaky on his legs, he stumbled into the bathroom and splashed his face with water. Palms splayed over the edge of the sink, he dragged ragged breaths into his lungs, droplets slipping off his face. He looked up, seeing himself, just as he was in the reflection. 

Pale skin, fading bruises, jagged scars. Dark circles under his eyes, knuckles white. 

Katelyn’s hand brushed over the place between his shoulder blades, resting her head there before wrapping her arms around his waist. She exhaled into the cotton of his shirt, still mostly asleep. Aaron distantly appreciated the sentiment. 

“Bad dream?” she asked groggily, eyes shut from where they hid in his back. 

“Yeah,” he whispered, more of a well shaped exhale than anything else. He still held onto the edge of the sink to prevent him from falling. 

She cooed sympathetically before going quiet, Aaron suspecting she fallen asleep where she stood. He breathed through the rest of the panic, grounded by her weight on his back, brushing the line between just enough and too much. He eventually turned in her arms and held her loosely, kissing her forehead and rubbing over her back until she woke from her daze. 

“Mm, sorry. Must have drifted off,” she whispered, looking up at him sleepily, but with that ever-present determined glint. 

“It’s okay,” he said softly, cupping her face. How elegant she was in her most inelegant moments. Half asleep, weary and vulnerable, they both held on to one another. “I’ll be okay.”

“Step by step,” she whispered, already falling back asleep in his hold. 

She was right, Aaron knew. Step by step, hour by hour, minute by minute. 

He’d be okay. They both would be, together.


End file.
